The Morality of Counterterrorism. A Just War Theory Analysis of U.S Counterterrorism after 9/11

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject History - America, grade: 65% (Scottish Marking Scale), University of Edinburgh, language: English, abstract: Michael Walzer¿s "Just and Unjust Wars" caused a revival of just war theory and has given a useful framework for analyzing morality in war. This dissertation will use just war theory as a moral framework for evaluating U.S counterterrorism after 9/11. First by giving an overview of just war theory and a literature review. Then there will be an analysis of the moral pitfalls and benefits inherent in the individual methods of counterterrorism. After that I will show how these methods have been applied practically by analyzing U.S domestic counterterrorism and U.S counterterrorism in the Middle East. The findings of this paper will show that U.S counterterrorism since 9/11 has consistently violated just war moral principles, but is ultimately morally unjustifiable because it has not provided a good chance of success for preventing terrorism.